Matt Damon Biography

Matt Damon, an American actor, film producer and screenwriter was born Matthew Paige Damon on October 8, 1970 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.His father, Kent, worked in finance and real estate while his mother, Nancy, was a professor in early childhood education.

The family lived in Newton until his parents divorced in 1973, when Damon and his brother moved with his mother to Cambridge. He grew up in a stable community, and was raised near actor Ben Affleck.

Matt Damon Movie Career

At age 18 Matt Damon landed a small part in Mystic Pizza in the year 1988 and also enrolled in Harvard University as an English major. After appearing in the television movie Rising Son in 1990, he left Harvard to pursue an acting career just 12 credits short of graduation.

Matt Damon next appeared as a soldier in 1996’s Courage Under Fire, for which he lost 40 pounds (18 kg) in 100 days on a self-prescribed diet and fitness regimen.The following year, 1997, Matt garnered accolades for Good Will Hunting, a script he had originally written for for an English class at Harvard University.He won an award for the best original screenplay along with his childhood friend, Ben Affleck.

The award came as a breakthrough to his acting career as Matt became sought after and this led to him landing roles in various films in the 1990’s.He starred in films such as Rounders in 1998, World War II, the blockbuster Saving Private Ryan in 1998 and Anthony Minghella’s Talented Mr. Ripley in 1999.

Matt Damon continued making high-profile projects into the new millennium with films that included The Bourne Identity released in 2002 along with its sequels The Bourne Supremacy in the year 2004 and The Bourne Ultimatum which premiered in 2007. The $110 million Bourne Ultimatum had the largest August opening weekend in movie history, doing an estimated $70.2 million of business in the United States and Canada and holding that record until the release of 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy

In 2006 Damon starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson in The Departed; the crime thriller, which was directed by Martin Scorsese, won an Academy Award for best picture. In 2009 Matt Damon lent his voice to Ponyo, the English version of Miyazaki Hayao’s animated Gake no ue no Ponyo ( “Ponyo on the Cliff”). He later portrayed an unreliable whistleblower in The Informant! which was released in 2009.

In the year 2010 Matt Damon starred in the films True Grit , though the thriller Green Zone of which both had a more mixed reception. He teamed up with Eastwood again for the 2010 drama Hereafter and the following year played a politician romancing Emily Blunt’s dancer character in the sci-fi drama The Adjustment Bureau.

Returning to science fiction, Damon starred in Elysium with Jodie Foster and The Zero Theorem, both in 2013. He went on to appear in the war drama The Monuments Men als released in 2014 with George Clooney. Later in 2014, Damon once again teamed up with longtime friend Affleck.

In 2015, he played the main character, astronaut Mark Watney, in Ridley Scott’s The Martian, based on Andy Weir’s best-selling novel of the same name, a role that earned Matt Damon the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and his second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.The Martian has earned almost $600 million worldwide.

In 2017, Matt Damon played the lead role in Zhang Yimou’s The Great Wall, a film that became a hit at international box offices.

Matt Damon Wife

Matt Damon married his longtime girlfriend, Argentine-born Luciana Bozán Barroso in December 2005 in New York City Hall. The two had met while he was filming Stuck On You in Miami, where she was working as a bartender.

Matt Damon Children

Matt Damon and his Argentine-born wife, Luciana Bozán Barroso have four daughters Alexia a step daughter from Luciana’s previous relationship as well as Isabella, Gia and Stella.

Matt Damon Awards

Matt Damon, the talented actor, film producer and screenwriter has won numerous awards which include: Academy Awards, British Academy Film Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Primetime Emmy Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Alliance of Women Film Journalists, American Cinematheque Award, Australian Film Institute, Awards Circuit Community Awards, Berlin International Film Festival, Broadcast Film Critics Association Award and several other awards.